Page 4 of Crave

A mess. A vulnerable, drunk, high-as-fuck mess.

Fear crawled my spine, but beneath it something hotter uncoiled, low and shameful. That man terrified me in a way nothing else ever had. Wrapped in gold foil my entire life, I wasn’t used to the gutter. Despite what Ollie had said earlier. I was a typical trust-fund kid. Boarding school at five. Mayfair mansions. Oxford — BA Jurisprudence, top of my cohort. Called to the Bar, then back in a post-grad shared townhouse in the city, paid for by Daddy, because I’d chosen to step sideways instead of forward. A world where danger came dressed in tailored suits and polite smiles. I didn’t know men like this. Men carved hard by life, brutal without apology. My rebellion had always been curated. Safe. Tidy. A dream I could fold away when the lights came on. But when he looked right at me, it wasn’t fear for my safety that had me frozen.

It was fear for my sanity.

Because he looked at me as if he wanted to eat me.

And I wanted to lie down and let him.

The bloke took a drag from his cigarette, smoke curling lazily from his lips, eyes never leaving mine. Then he flicked the butt to the kerb, crushed it under his trainer, and glanced both ways. Not for traffic. No, it was too subtle for that. Checking the coast was clear, perhaps? Then he stepped off the pavement and crossed the street with a slow, unhurried swagger as if the world bent around him.

And suddenly he was there.

Right in front of me. Towering. All menace and masculinity.

Fuck.

Up close, he was brutal beauty. Older than me, though not by decades. Twenty-something, but weathered by a life I’d never touch. I was twenty-three; I’d stake my trust fund he hadn’t yet hit thirty. He wore the years harder, though. Lines cut deep, scarred edges, a face carved for intimidation. Fierce. A man I’d usually gaze at from a safe distance, admire in secret, knowing full well getting close would wreck me.

“You’re new.” His voice was cut from Hackney asphalt, rough-edged, grating against my polished ear.

“Uh…yeah?” My throat worked. It was true. I was new.

New here, new to this.

New to anything smelling of danger instead of champagne.

He gave a small nod, angled his head, then moved past me, sauntering down the alley, cutting into the shadows, not even glancing back as if he knew I’d follow.

I did. Of course, I fucking did.

Didn’t I say how hot he was?

Besides, the club had already broken me, shattered me down into something small, stupid, and desperate. Because Ollie had been ten feet away, kissing someone who wasn’t me, and I couldn’t go back in there to Benji’s knowing smirk, Henry’s quiet judgment, and Zara’s grating sympathy. No, I had to stay out here.

With him.

He popped another cigarette between his lips, and it hung there unlit. His other hand went to his belt. Casual. Unapologetic. Leather unlooped, metal clinked, buttons popped. And he freed himself as if I’d asked him to. No ceremony. No hesitation. Just the blunt demand, hanging in the sour night air.

And okay, here’s the thing — if I’d been sober, or even remotely clear-headed, I might’ve paused long enough to process the situation. I’d probably have laughed. Definitely would have walked away. Not that I was naïve. Nor some virgin bride or frigid fraud. I’d been fucked and fucking since my first nights at Harrow, testing boundaries in Oxford dorm rooms and Mayfair townhouses. Then I met Ollie. Had two years of monogamy with a man who explored every inch of me as if I were his own personal plaything. A sport he wanted to perfect. Like his rowing.

So no, I wasn’t innocent.

But I also didn’t kneel for strangers in alleys stinking of piss and rot.

I couldn’t explain it. And it wasn’t just the hard, brazen cock, that was more than willing to let me bury the sting of betrayal in its weight, fixing me to the spot. Nor was this me numbing myself to Ollie’s mouth on someone else. Or making up for the two years I’d poured into a man who’d left me gutted on a dancefloor. It wasn’t even the quiet devastation of knowing I’d paused my career path for him, that my father’s disappointment had become permanent, that my mother had probably doubled her therapy sessions on my behalf.

No. It wasn’t any of that.

It was his eyes that had me hooked.

Fierce, velvety-brown, as if beauty had once lived there, but it had been scraped out by weather and war and life too hard for polish. They held me fast. Impatient at my hesitation, too, but steady enough to make escape impossible. And it was them, not his cock, or his bulk, or his threat, pinning me in place. Because when I looked back, deeper than I should have, what reflected terrified me more than anything.

Me, not resisting. Instead, falling.

To my knees, opening my mouth and welcoming him in.

“That’s it,” he drawled, cigarette hanging from his lips as he slipped a hand around the back of my head.